Digging deep for gold: Thieves nab $67 million

August 10, 2005

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL — Thieves spent three months tunneling under a busy city boulevard in northeastern Brazil to break into a Central Bank vault and pull off the biggest robbery ever in South America's largest country.

The crime that netted $67.8 million was remarkably similar to a tunnel heist last year in which more than $1 million was stolen from a Sao Paulo company that transports money for banks. The suspected mastermind of that caper reportedly had escaped from prison three years earlier--by digging a tunnel.

The vault in the city of Fortaleza, about 1,550 miles northeast of the capital, was plundered over the weekend "by a group of highly sophisticated thieves," said Sabrina Albuquerque, a federal police spokeswoman.

Not a single shot was fired, she said, adding that while no one has been arrested, at least eight suspects have been identified. She did not know if more thieves were involved.

The heist took place sometime between 6 p.m. Friday, when the vault closes for the weekend, and 8 a.m. Monday, when it reopens. The thieves broke into five containers filled with worn Brazilian real notes worth about $22 each.

The thieves crawled in through a

28-inch-high tunnel that stretched 262 feet from a house they rented near the bank. Dug 13 feet below the vault floor, the tunnel--which the robbers spent three months constructing--had wooden panels and plastic sheeting lining the walls, as well as electric lighting.

Inside, police found a bolt cutter, a drill, an electric saw and a blowtorch, which were apparently used to cut through the vault's 3.5-foot-thick steel-reinforced concrete floor, the federal police spokeswoman said.

She said the thieves renovated the rental house and put up a sign indicating it was a landscaping company selling plants and natural and artificial grass.

"I never saw them selling anything, and, in fact, I never saw any plant or grass for sale in that house," said Richard Chamberlain, owner of a used bookstore next to the house.

Chamberlain said he never heard noises indicating tunneling or anything suspicious. "The tunnel was dug underneath one of the city's busiest and noisiest avenues, so it would be hard to notice anything unusual."